British Fresh-Water Fishes.

HOUGHTON, The Rev. W. British Fresh-Water Fishes. Two volumes. Illustrated with 41 chromoxylographed plates of fish engraved by Benjamin Fawcett after drawings by A.F. Lydon and numerous steel-engraved plates of angling locales. Folio, bound in decorative publisher's brick textured cloth over beveled boards with black-, gilt-, and blind-stamped piscatorial vignettes and motifs on boards and spines, a.e.g. London: William Mackenzie, [1879]. First Edition. "Houghton, a Shropshire clergyman, aimed his book at the fisherman rather than the naturalist, and the text (of which there is, unusually, plenty) gives information about recognition, feeding and breeding habits, habitat, bait and so on" (Buchanan, Nature into Art, 168). Alexander Francis Lydon's plates, which were printed by Benjamin Fawcett, show each fish in what is meant to be its natural habitat. For this work, Houghton studied the specimens in the collection of the British Museum. British Fresh-Water Fishes is notable for its incorporation of the naturalistic backgrounds of the fish habitats. The fact that this work has been reprinted in subsequent editions from the 19th century through the 1980s attests to the quality and interest of the descriptions and illustrations, even though taxonomists have since revised some of the classifications. Wonderful copy in original condition. Westwood & Satchell 247. Nissen, ZBI 2009.